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Write Your Butt Off 358/II.8 prompts HD Final Chapter Prologue


Benice
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We also have our first anonymous entry! I apologize for the double-post, but I believe it is a necessary evil.

Title: Foreign Shores for Foreign Hearts

Setting: Tellius

Word Count: 1009

Spoiler

 

Why couldn’t it all go back to what it was before; traveling the countryside; fighting the good fight as the mercenary the people could trust. It seems saving the world had harsher consequences than saving mere Crimea had. The noble burdens attached to that feat had fettered me, despite my best efforts to avoid it. It almost worked for a time, thanks to Elincia’s little gift.

 

It was a strange conversation to have with her. The Crimean nobles that avoided the death shared by Ashera’s recruits were pressuring her to make me the Crimean King. The customs surrounding love have always been a bit…foreign to me, and much to our mutual embarrassment at first I thought she was in need of my help defending her crown once again. It was hard to reject her. She had become one of the people I truly cared about, and I did not want to hurt her with my words, but condemning her to a marriage devoid of the kind of love she needed seemed the graver wound. Although there is still a tinge of guilt within this memory, as there was imbedded in my choice, that selfish wish to hold on to that old life of adventure I deluded myself into believing was still in reach…and…I…I know this lack of…of….or rather my inability to…reciprocate? …understand?...I do not really have the words; but I simply do not feel this THING that the rest of word seems obsessed with. She should have loved a more norma-- no, she should have…sigh, no this is no fault of hers…there feels to be some blame and yet I cannot find the feet to lay it at. Even the goddesses seemed clueless of the curiosities they wrought in a way that keeps me from placing it on them. Perhaps if she were not so understanding this would not be so muddled in my mind. Her response was such a stark contrast from the cloying, and suffocating advances of Aimee.  Alas she played not the enemy, instead she said “if you truly love someone, sometimes you have to let them go. Fly from this court and be free”.

 

Free I was, but things were never quite the same. There was this reverence for my deeds, that common folk feared to trouble me with the work they found beneath me, despite how desperately I wanted to return to it. All who were not cowed came after my services with a foul intent, to make of me a symbol of the righteousness for their own unjust acts. The miasma of my own success has suffocated that beloved past time, while the future was being forged without me. Rhys had found a truer calling than ours ever was in the raising of orphans; Shinon has sunk to bottom of every barrel he could find; Gatrie has gotten to the top of every woman that will let him; Mia became entangled with a disciple to rival her own enthusiasm with the sword; Oscar followed his calling back into the Royal Knight (despite all his promises to return whenever we need him); Rolf gets called on more to teach the bow than to shoot one; while Boyd and Mist are about to bear my first Nephew. The Griel Mercenaries are beginning to scatter, and it all comes back to my own legend. I have become an Albatross upon the neck of my father’s legacy.

 

I feel perched upon a precipice of decision, a point in transition. If I will stay, I fear I must become entangled by the political mire of my own heroism, but if I go it will be into an unknown vaster than any yet faced. I have spoken my ennui to Ranulf, and he has given me that golden escape, speaking of plans for a great voyage to find what lies beyond the horizon. It would be a way to return to what I was, not some godly hero, but a simple man respected for what I CAN do, not what I once did. Although it would also be abandoning the responsibilities I have now. Saying goodbye to Mist will be hard, but at least Boyd will be there to protect her, and the two of them could carry on the legacy of Greil’s Mercenaries. Ragnell should stay in the land of the goddesses that blessed it, and I could pass it onto Mia with few regrets, although that still leaves the issue of Soren.

 

Soren has been my best, and longest friend, since the time we met as boys, and his fates is as adrift as mine is now, but for far longer. His friends are few, marked as cursed by the G--, well cursed by men I suppose, while his company has always been an acquired taste. I could never leave him alone. He promised to follow me to whatever end we would reach together, and I would not deny him that now. Mist had goaded me into confronting him about his feeling for me, and while she was right about his love, he had already known my heart. He made that promise knowing I would never be his in the way he truly wanted, but wanting to be with me all the same. It is not my fate alone in my hands, if this be a fool’s errand to the bottom of the sea, I doom him as well. Many a time I have held the fate of friends in my hands upon the battlefield, but doing do in these calms between such storms is a harder. A decision must be made.

 

They say that all endings make new beginnings. Behind me I say farewell to a world that condemned me as their savior. Before me are two friends, the last I will meet from my home lands. In the briny air, I am surprised by the arrival of a bird. Not some squawking sea fowl, but a smaller bird, whose bright wings blend with the rising sun. A good omen to end on…and begin on.

 

I apologize for the formatting being a little borked. That's on me, not the person who wrote it.

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Poll is up! It'll run from now until just before midnight of January 31st in Pacific Standard Time, so you've got just under three days to get your votes in and wait for the next round.

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Welp, I'm really pushing it with a quadruple-post, but I don't know that I'll have time to give feedback tomorrow, so:

@indigoasis:

Spoiler

I really enjoyed your entry, and I don't have that much to say in critique of it; I think that you've proven yourself to be able to tell low-key, character-based stories quite well, so I wouldn't mind seeing you try something a little more off-the-wall or risky in a future round.

@SoulWeaver

Spoiler

This was a really strong short story. It's an interesting premise and was quite well-written, and I think that you really hit the mark with this one. My one minor gripe is that I felt that it was a teensy  bit rushed in terms of pacing, but it wasn't anything that obstructed my enjoyment of this, nor is it anything I'd worry too much about- I merely am looking for something to critique about this.

@AnonymousSpeed

Spoiler

Another really strong entry from you, no surprise there. The atmosphere was good and the characters had lots of personality. I agree that the world could have been a little better explained in terms of context, but I think that otherwise, the amount of information withheld actually improved the piece and made it more mysterious and surprising, as opposed to overly explained and bland.

I will say, that I don't think it fit the prompt particularly well, but I don't know if that would factor in my choice of who to vote for.

Anonymous author:

Spoiler

0/10 no Mist x Rolf fanship

I liked this entry a fair bit. I don't like Ike very much, but I enjoyed your writing regardless, and I think it fit the prompt more than anyone else's. I would encourage a little more attention to detail in terms of grammar and punctuation, but what you are saying is still fairly clear and gets the message across-I just think that the next step is to polish it.

 

As a kind of side note, I find it interesting how none of us really wrote about someone in a new life, but people about to start one.

Also, lads, please at least critique mine I really need the help...

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Ok guess here we go. Is short, forgive me.

@indigoasis

Spoiler

This one feels similar to the time travel one you did - we just kind of get thrown in without any real knowledge of what's going on. Not necessarily a bad thing, just felt like it needed to be pointed out. It's a little weird that they talk for like thirty seconds and the counselor guy's like ok that's all the time we got now git.

@AnonymousSpeed

Spoiler

Let me guess, you just barely discovered Hack The Planet Septima and realized it would make a phenomenal plot device?

In all seriousness, this certainly feels like it could be a good setup for a Battle Network story, though I haven't ever finished any of them so for all I know it could be built off like Star Force or something. Not bad, not bad, but not recognizing the character is a little off-putting.

@Benice

Spoiler

I liked yours, though it didn't really have a chance to fit the prompt super well in my eyes. It felt kind of like the first episode of an anime, so that was nice, but Inun suddenly having an emotional breakdown in the middle threw a wrench in the tempo of the fight(I say having written a total of one fight scene myself).

@Our anonymous friend

Spoiler

Tellius? Ana is that you?

This was ok, the punctuation could use a little bit of work. I don't think anyone puts a comma after a hyphen so "G-," was really weird to see since it's implied that you're pausing for the hyphen cutoff anyways. Don't have enough Tellius knowledge to really comment, but I do see the core of what you're getting at here and I get it.

 

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Feedback from our anonymous friend:

Notes: Untitled, Soul Weaver

Spoiler

It has an odd feel to it, like a mixing of a first-person unreliable narrator, and third person omniscient narrator, but without any pronoun indicators of which is which. Also, I think Jane came off as a bit dumber than you intended (although perhaps the rock lady was supposed to be dumb as a bag of rocks...)

Notes: His Woes, Indigoasis

Spoiler

I liked the opening, very descriptive, and the way descriptions seemed arranged in pairs set in mild contrast, builds towards a sense of duality. I just wish it ended on a brief glimpse of Mr. Carthy’s perspective, as the contrast setup places him as a more artificial, and constrained individual, so getting a peek behind that curtain would have been an interesting insight.

Notes: The Hollow Dragon, Benice

Spoiler

The intro is cumbersome. Also, there are a few points of redundancy that should be cut out, in small ways like her saying she sees a cave, and the narrator repeating that there is a cave, and in big ways, like the way the duel meets a false end twice. The dialogue setup the tone of the piece well (barring the insistence of trying to over explain why the duel actually is a duel…), with the sibling dialogue being rather believable. Although the inclusion of the “trashy stepsibling romance” is just…ugh. It brings attention to the awkward way it kind of sounds like Velikan finds her brother attractive by the way he is described, and it being a stepsibling novel adds nothing to the narrative (at least for now…), so simply making it a trashy romance would have worked just as well.

Notes: I’ll add this later, AnonymousSpeed

Spoiler

The tone feels kinda…off. It has more of an adult feel to it than feels comfortable for the Battle Network setting. I mean it has swears, and drinking in a story where a character called Serpent runs a company called Slither Inc.

---

As for my own replies...

3 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

@Benice

Yeah, I do agree with you on both accounts there. As you know, this was just roughly the first 10-15% of what I'd foolishly intended to submit, and as a result, I missed out on the point of the prompt, so I really should have revised. I also have no clue why I decided to interrupt the fight in that way, it was a bad move. I'd like to think it was time crunch, perhaps?

Are we supposed to reply to the feedback? I can't remember...

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Since I'll be headed to bed before the poll closes, assuming nobody votes in the next 40 or so minutes, we will conclude with a tie between @SoulWeaver and @indigoasis. We can either run a second poll that only features our two leaders, but I would like to propose a new idea, at least for this round: In the case of a tie, both victors can create a prompt and everyone else has a selection between the two.

...Aside from that, we can either extend the poll in order to get more votes, or we could select Indigoasis to choose the next prompt because he has never done so before, which is how we've done these things in the past.

I'm open to other ideas, but a prompt (heh) decision is preferable so that we may proceed with the next writing phase fairly quickly.

 

Have a good evening.

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I was curious as to how a tie would be handled. I didn't think I'd get that far, so it's cool to see it in action.

Anyway, I like that idea @Benice proposed. It can give everyone the opportunity to choose what prompt they would like to work with, not to mention it can speed up the process like he said. The only issue I can think of is having another tie between the prompts (in which case we could make new prompts and save the other prompts for another time, narrow the original vote between written works, or coordinate a time and play an online 1v1 game or something... but I don't think that would happen).

Alternatively, for an extra challenge, I was thinking we could combine both of the prompts somehow. Like... try to make a story that can connect to both themes, if possible. If not, we could always just stick to one or the other and leave both options on the table for everyone to choose from (but like... specify which prompt you chose to follow or whatever).

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6 hours ago, indigoasis said:

Alternatively, for an extra challenge, I was thinking we could combine both of the prompts somehow. Like... try to make a story that can connect to both themes, if possible. If not, we could always just stick to one or the other and leave both options on the table for everyone to choose from (but like... specify which prompt you chose to follow or whatever).

Sounds good to me. I think that people should be able to follow both prompts if they so choose, but they can also choose between your and Soulweaver's.

In which case, @SoulWeaver and @indigoasis, please choose your respective prompts. This writing phase shall last from whenever the prompts are submitted to Feb. 25. It'll be a bit of a short cycle this time, but it's a short month and there's not much to be done about it.

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1 minute ago, SoulWeaver said:

Wait, does this mean neither of us can participate this round, or does it mean we can both participate on each other’s prompts?

We changed the rules to allow participation on one's own prompt, didn't we?

Er, if we didn't, I think using the other person's prompt is a good idea.

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Wait, wait. I thought I had one more day to get to reading, reviewing, and voting. Oh no. I am failed.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeugh.

I'll still try and throw up some reviews. Grody, though.

On 2/1/2022 at 2:22 AM, Benice said:

...Aside from that, we can either extend the poll in order to get more votes, or we could select Indigoasis to choose the next prompt because he has never done so before, which is how we've done these things in the past.

I'm open to other ideas, but a prompt (heh) decision is preferable so that we may proceed with the next writing phase fairly quickly.

I prefer this way of doing things to a tie, but perhaps now is a good time to re-suggest my "win by lottery" approach. Since the purpose of the competition is to learn and practice, I think a model which rewards participation more than pre-existing skill could work out pretty well.

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16 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Wait, wait. I thought I had one more day to get to reading, reviewing, and voting. Oh no. I am failed.

Heck, sorry. If you don't mind me asking, who would you have voted for? It could simplify things for this round if it was SoulW or Indy.

Thanks for getting the feedback in, though.

18 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

prefer this way of doing things to a tie, but perhaps now is a good time to re-suggest my "win by lottery" approach. Since the purpose of the competition is to learn and practice, I think a model which rewards participation more than pre-existing skill could work out pretty well.

Hmm...

Well, since this round is gonna be crunched for time anyways, how about I put a poll up for it during this round's voting period?

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9 hours ago, Benice said:

Heck, sorry. If you don't mind me asking, who would you have voted for? It could simplify things for this round if it was SoulW or Indy.

Not sure. I'm not very good at those kinds of decisions.

9 hours ago, Benice said:

Well, since this round is gonna be crunched for time anyways, how about I put a poll up for it during this round's voting period?

Sure, why not? Acquire more information at maximum speed.

***

On 1/31/2022 at 8:14 PM, SoulWeaver said:

Let me guess, you just barely discovered Hack The Planet Septima and realized it would make a phenomenal plot device?

In all seriousness, this certainly feels like it could be a good setup for a Battle Network story, though I haven't ever finished any of them so for all I know it could be built off like Star Force or something. Not bad, not bad, but not recognizing the character is a little off-putting.

Not quite, the "Dimensional Area" is a concept stolen from the Battle Network anime which I've never seen. There are actually some moments where intimate knowledge of Star Force 2 might increase your appreciation, though for the most part it is all unrelated to the games, their plots, and their characters.

On 2/1/2022 at 12:03 AM, Benice said:

The tone feels kinda…off. It has more of an adult feel to it than feels comfortable for the Battle Network setting. I mean it has swears, and drinking in a story where a character called Serpent runs a company called Slither Inc.

Y'know, I have to agree with this. It is a burden to which I have resigned myself, although perhaps I should not.

There are certainly a few things I'd change in a second draft as well. A lot of moments which aren't quite as snappy as I'd like them to be, where I spell things out too much. I definitely think this:

On 1/29/2022 at 1:04 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

"It's a dangerous game to give away that kind of power freely."
Apostate scoffed, then gave a long explanation of his ideals.

Would have been better if it was more like this:

On 1/29/2022 at 1:04 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

"It's a dangerous game to give away that kind of power freely."
"Yeah, that's the point."

***

Criticisms, delivered in blob-ish formats.

@Benice

Spoiler

 >the waves tossing the boat like salad

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Use this phrase again.

>Velikan riposted angrily.

This is one of those placed where "said angrily" would have been much better, or simply "spat". Riposte is kind of a clunky work, especially for dialogue, which should move along a little more naturally. I generally recommend sticking to "said" or specifying who the speaker is by pairing the quote with an action of theirs, it keeps things more brisk. Some more generous line breaks would have helped with the pacing as well, things can seem a bit block-ish as is.

>After all, she’d still be stuck with Ignis, who was not the best company in any scenario.

Who's this Ignis guy? I don't think you need a lot of context whenever you mention another character, but I think something would have been nice in this case. Not much is needed, I think it's perfectly fine to just say Aestus is a detective for instance, but a little more information on how Velikan would know Ignis well enough to dislike him would be nice. As is, I read that and have to double back, 'cause I don't really get it.

>memes

So, I'm a little confused at the setting here, and not because I don't think it can't work. Parody-esque fantasy settings with modern elements are fine, but the story introduces itself as being in a fairly serious and traditional fantasy piece. The addition of modern incest jokes and calling a guy a simp is pretty jarring as a result, as is the mid-battle pep talk, especially since the general writing is also very serious in tone.

>“HYYAAAAAAA!” The two screamed at the top of their lungs and charged each other, their weapons clashing cinematically as lightning filled the air.

So, a couple things. I don't think you need dialogue and a description of the two screaming- dialogue of screaming can seem silly, so I'd just keep the description. I also wouldn't describe something as cinematic, since that describes complex and ambiguous visual qualities. It's kind of like saying "their fight was very cool". Of course you want the fight to be cool, that's the aim of the writing, except cinematic is an aim which can really only be achieved with visual mediums.

>“Huh. I guess this lump of planks is called the Deus Ex Machina for a reason.” Inun gave a raspy laugh at her own joke, standing up slowly.

You don't need to explain that she laughed own joke. That's clear enough from the "raspy laugh" part.

To be honest, I think the scene where Velikan falls over drags on a bit. There's like, three fake-outs where it looks like she might get back in the boat, but if she's just going to get sent overboard anyway, I think a lot of the back-and-forth steps can be cut

On 1/29/2022 at 1:49 AM, Benice said:

-The tattoos were inspired, nay, ripped from Yakuza as well. I feel like it's clear enough, but Velikan's got only the outlines of a dragon's scales because she's fairly new to banditry, whereas Andernach is seasoned and therefore all colored in.

Yeah, don't worry, it's quite clear.There's probably a lesson about letting things speak for themselves somewhere as well.

On 1/29/2022 at 1:49 AM, Benice said:

Inun's race's

See, at first I read this and thought fantasy race, like elves or something, when I had assumed all the characters were humans. But now I'm wondering if it's supposed to mean ethnicity. This is probably more a world-building question than one related to the story.

Fight scenes are one of those difficult things to do in writing, because the conveyance is of a very different type than the movies and TV shows in which we normally see them.

I'd like to praise you for writing the one story this round in which characters do things instead of talk about things. This is the greatest praise any entry could receive.

@FakeAnon

On 1/31/2022 at 8:14 PM, SoulWeaver said:

I don't think anyone puts a comma after a hyphen so "G-," was really weird to see since it's implied that you're pausing for the hyphen cutoff anyways.

This is the correct grammar, yes. Commas are improper if there's already a hyphen.

I actually like the ideas of someone feeling out of place because their reputation keeps them from a simpler life they desire and they can't "feel" how they think they should. Good concepts, but they mostly remain concepts. I'm not really sure what else to do with them, though.

@SoulWeaver

The pacing is pretty weird, it does kind of rush by you. I do remember the "BEHOLD A CONCEPT" story, though only vaguely, so if there are any connections between the two, I don't quite remember them. It's a fair enough little set-up piece for a series of more interesting events, assuming the stone lady has anything to do in said events.

@indigoasis

Oh my, two stories which bring up inflation? Hm, must be a pressing issue relevant to the common man.

I don't know much about psychology and I don't desire to, which I think limits by ability to critique this.

"Not every new beginning is going to be a positive one, but it's up to you to make the most of it" is a good message, but I think it's going to be hard to get is across without more information about either his marriage previously (what ended) or what he does afterwards (what began).

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Ok, well, from what I can understand from past prompts, most anything goes, so here's mine, I suppose:

Spoiler

(You may be entitled to) Financial Compensation

If it's not up to par, let me know and I can change it.

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14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

This is one of those placed where "said angrily" would have been much better, or simply "spat"

I've turned into J.K. Rowling over the fw years I've not been writing nOOOO-

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

See, at first I read this and thought fantasy race, like elves or something, when I had assumed all the characters were humans. But now I'm wondering if it's supposed to mean ethnicity. This is probably more a world-building question than one related to the story.

It's kind of a combination of the two; the race she decended from is indeed more of a race than an ethnicity, but their descendants are from people or groups of people who left the race's homeland and placed roots elsewhere. Descendants of the warrior race (who really needed a name...) do tend to band together, but it's not really a culture and you could find them about anywhere there's a decent population.

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

To be honest, I think the scene where Velikan falls over drags on a bit. There's like, three fake-outs where it looks like she might get back in the boat, but if she's just going to get sent overboard anyway, I think a lot of the back-and-forth steps can be cut

Yeah. I was torn between just being like "And then she was gone", but from the experiences I've had with the books we read in school, I have a distaste for 'offhand' sort of deaths, where it's just mentioned in one line and that's it. Though it appears I swung way too far in the other direction...

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It's kind of like saying "their fight was very cool".

Actually, that's a really good point.

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Fight scenes are one of those difficult things to do in writing, because the conveyance is of a very different type than the movies and TV shows in which we normally see them.

I've never really done one before, so one of the ideas I had going into this one was trying to do a more action-based story. I don't think I've succeeded, but I at least learned a fair bit from it. I think.

One of the things I found hard about writing is that, well, I haven't been reading many books latly. I ran out of stuff in my house to read fairly early oninto the pandemic, so most of the story-related stuff I've consumed is from video games like Yakuza and Dark Souls, and especially with the latter, there's a lot that is communicated without words. As such, I think I had a hard time with knowing how much or little to describe this time around, and what to leave to the reader's imagination- Sometimes overdescribing, and sometimes underdescribing. 

...And I also just forgot to make Ignis more relevant than he was. I do tend to forget what the reader does and doesn't know, which does lead to some problems. 

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'd like to praise you for writing the one story this round in which characters do things instead of talk about things. This is the greatest praise any entry could receive.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate all of your feedback. Even though I didn't reply to all of it, I certainly read all of it and I think I can do much better with my next entry!

4 hours ago, indigoasis said:

Ok, well, from what I can understand from past prompts, most anything goes, so here's mine, I suppose:

  Reveal hidden contents

(You may be entitled to) Financial Compensation

If it's not up to par, let me know and I can change it.

 

4 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

I’ll go ahead and add mine while we’re here:

Absurdity taken seriously

Hopefully these two go together nicely, enjoy folks.

Excellent! I won't be able to get the OP updated for another five or so hours, but I am very excited to get writing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had an idea but I never got round to writing anything for it. But not like normal where I was busy procrastinating and doing nothing!...Well actually I did do quite a lot of procrastinating, but I actually managed to do some solid non prompt writing in general this month. More than I have in a while. So even if I didn't do much for this specific community, I feel reasonably good about myself.

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